A contact arrangement of this type is described in German Patent No. 44 16 105. FIG. 5 of the specification shows a supplementary view of a contact lever bracket 2, equipped with a contact lever 1, of a circuit breaker described in German Patent No. 44 16 105. According to this description, both lateral bearers 3 of contact lever bracket 2 are provided with a journal 4, projecting to the outside, which engages bearing opening 5 of a housing section 6 (truncated in the illustration) of the circuit breaker. With a multipole circuit breaker design, this arrangement takes up a certain amount of space along a width. Partitions 7 (truncated in the illustration) between adjacent poles must therefore have a width corresponding to an axial depth of both bearing openings, plus a sufficient amount of clearance. The described pivot bearing design therefore affects the width of the circuit breaker.
Other conventional arrangements exist for the pivotable bearing assembly of the movable contact arrangement of a low-voltage circuit breaker. For example, German Patent No. 38 02 183 describes an arrangement in which the contact lever bracket is pivotably attached to the stationary conductor segment by a bearing pin. In this arrangement, lateral bearers of the contact lever bracket project over the stationary conductor segment, which, just like the conventional arrangement described in German Patent No. 44 16 105, also increases the width of the movable contact arrangement beyond the size required for electrical rating. Pivot bearings for movable contact arrangements that require no or only a very slight lateral projection over the stationary conductor segment are also known. One pivot bearing of this type, which is designed as an articulated current transfer arrangement, is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,593. In contrast to a contact arrangement according to the present invention, each individual contact lever in this arrangement is provided with a bearing pin. Together with helical springs as the sliding element, this bearing pin also forms a means for transferring current. The production of the bearing opening requires a relatively expensive method for machining the stationary conductor segment. Due to their fluctuating electrical contact resistance, articulated current-transfer arrangements are also not suitable for all low-voltage circuit breaker applications.